"Following a string of increasingly remarkable albums, Eluvium's Matthew Cooper set out to broaden his instrumental palette, while maintaining the uncanny emotional resonance that has become his trademark. The result is Copia, an hour-long epic that applies Eluvium's heartache-inducing ether to a symphony of strings, brass, keyboards and piano. Noticeably absent but hardly missed are the washes of guitars that color most of Eluvium's previous material. The deliberate exclusion of traditional rock instrumentation serves as sufficient proof that the instrument is not Eluvium's driving force. At best it is a catalyst, a vehicle to that netherworld in the back of your head, where your life starts to uncontrollably reevaluate itself."

"Over the course of three albums Eluvium (aka Matthew Cooper) has crawled from total obscurity to his rightful place as one of America's premier modern composers. Tying up his career to this point -- and acting as a companion piece to Talk Amongst the Trees -- the four pieces on When I Live by the Garden and the Sea showcase both the neoclassical piano-driven elegance and the tidal drones that he has become almost famous for. It takes his explorations in sound and vision to their logical conclusion."

"Beneath the cold water glow, Talk Amongst the Trees is a soundtrack for exploring the surface of your own ocean, slow moving like the sand that runs through your fingers, and incandescent like the most unique creatures of the sea. Lacking most recognizable instrumentation (save the guitar mantra, 'Taken'), Talk Amongst the Trees is an album that exists in its own fantastic landscape. Making no attempt to compete with the world outside, it drags you inside your own subconscious, allowing sentimental thoughts and memories to pile up on themselves. As the hour-long journey progresses, details fall away until nothing remains but a warm, colorless, but intimately personal, abyss. We're not sure how he does it, but once again Eluvium creates a new and beautiful feeling."

"Returning exactly one year after dropping one of the most consistently gorgeous ambient rock records of the last decade with 2003's Lambent Material, Eluvium's Matthew Cooper follows it up with, well, one of the most consistently gorgeous neoclassical records of the last quarter century. An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death began as most Eluvium's pieces do, sitting on a bench in front of a baby grand piano in Cooper's apartment. The difference this time was that the songs started to grow legs, and eventually ran away together until an entire album of haunting, intimate suites were made for solo piano. Cooper's longtime influences of baroque classical and modern minimalist composers shines bright over the brief-but-sweeping half hour length of this record, and never once does he give in to the wall-of-noise temptations that made Lambent Material so oceanic. Instead of drifting away in a sea of swelling guitars and drones, you're graced with a rare display of Cooper's unaccompanied piano movements."

"In the dictionary, the literal definition for Eluvium reads: the debris from the disintegration of rock. One listen to Matthew Cooper's (aka Eluvium) flawless debut album, even peripherally, and you can't help but smirk at how perfectly appropriate the moniker is. Sounding somewhat like the echoed resonance of a Sonic Youth show after everyone has stopped playing and the crowd has gone home, Cooper himself isn't guilty of the mass destruction, he's merely there to pick up the beautifully broken pieces. With a depth ranging from fragile to glacial, he takes dense layers of guitars and pianos and builds them into an awe-inspiring fortress around himself. Resting comfortably and confidently in the spirits of Brian Eno's Discreet Music and Ambient Music For Airports, Eluvium is a freakishly beautiful affair. It is pure, epic rock music... after the lights go out."